Geschenk & Gift

In German, “Geschenk” means gift or present. “Gift,” however, means poison or venom.

Yesterday I was pondering the connection between poison and gifts at Christmas time. It’s not the most obvious connection. Poison and gifts don’t seem like they would relate well together… Hopefully nobody will get a poisoned gift under the tree!

In some ways, Jesus was both a gift and a poison. His life, death, and resurrection gave us the gift of eternal life, but that only came because Jesus became a curse, or poison, for us. “He who knew no sin became sin for us.” He drank the cup of God’s wrath and died instead of us. He felt the poison fangs in His heel on the cross in order to crush the serpent’s head.

Having watched the movie “Enchanted” last week, the idea of the poisoned apple came to my mind. It appears to be a lovely gift, but it is actually “vergiftet” (poisoned). Adam and Eve had all of God’s good gifts of food to choose from, but they disobeyed Him and ate the “poisoned apple,” which put the human race into a “deep slumber,” held captive by death, awaiting “true love’s kiss.” That rescue came in the form of the true love of the Son of the King, Christ Jesus, who tasted death on the Cross for us and raised us to new life with Him!

Real life is kind of like a fairy tale…. or perhaps fairy tales reflect a deeper reality. C.S. Lewis said, “Now as myth transcends thought, Incarnation transcends myth. The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens–at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. . . . By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle.” (God in the Dock, “Myth Became Fact,” 1944)